Don't Call Me Daughter
by Lavinia Lavender
Summary: John could never clearly remember the following months, at what point he became unable to voice more than the first syllable of his daughter's name, or when he stopped trying to reach for the rest of it. Girl!Dean AU


**Author notes: **This is my first real Dee (girl!Dean) story. I've posted one before, but it was more of an exploratory ficlet. This is the real deal. I have a lot of serious stories planned with her, and this is the one that gives a full view of my interpretation of the character.

Enjoy!

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><p><strong>Don't Call Me Daughter<strong>

They named her Deanna. For Mary's mother, who died unexpectedly with her husband, an event that shattered Mary for months. Perhaps she and John shouldn't have gotten married so soon after, but he seemed like all she had left, all she had to lean on, and John wanted to be there for her.

A child hadn't been in their plans, not so soon. Neither of them felt ready, emotionally equipped, but after the first trimester, Mary rallied. A baby was the perfect focus to turn to the promises of the future, instead of the dead of the past. Or at least John thought so, until Mary said she would name the child after her parents, whichever the gender, but he could not refuse her.

Nine months later, they had a daughter, and they named her Deanna. John fell in love with her and her name. Like a lullaby, he sang it to her over her crib, as her dark blonde hair grew out and she stood up to walk. Mary spun her through the house, lifted her up to sit on the counter to help with the cooking, bought her pretty sundresses and matching bows. When John got home at the end of the day, he never failed to sweep her up and, cooing, ask who his princess was. Deanna always knew the answer.

When her baby brother arrived, John made sure she knew that, even though Mommy and Daddy paid Sammy a lot of attention, nothing would ever change the fact that she, and she alone, was his princess. After some brief insecurity, Deanna seemed to understand, and she grew happily attached to her new brother, taking special pride in her position as the oldest. She was an extraordinarily lively girl, interested in everything around her and never ceasing to show off how quick she was. Though John's coworkers and friends bought him twice as many drinks to celebrate his son's birth than to celebrate Deanna's, John wondered at times if he favored his daughter. Perhaps it was only because Sammy was still an infant and John had already spent four years loving Deanna, but she was his constant inspiration to do right - come home on time, let the little stuff go, never let them down - even more than Mary, though he would never dare admit it. Mary already knew his faults and failures; he had survived the disappointment in her eyes. But Deanna seemed oblivious to his shortcomings. The delight and adoration transforming her face every time she caught sight of him never changed, and each time he saw it he resolved to make sure it never would.

But that idyllic mission burned away in November, the night he pushed Sammy into her arms and told her to run, run.

So much more than John's house and wife crumbled to ashes that night. The weeks they remained in Lawrence were unbearable, each attempt of a well-meaning friend to reach out searing like salt on a burn. John couldn't bear to be around any familiar faces or sights, anything he had thought he would share with Mary in their golden years. He was forcefully reminded of when he first returned to the States after Vietnam—out of place, hyper-aware of everyday dangers everyone else passed unawares, but this was so much worse. It was no longer a matter of reminding himself the perils remained on the other side of the world; now they were real, _here_, in every shadow and corner he couldn't see. There was no coming home, no readjusting. There would never again be a safe place.

John could never clearly remember the following months, at what point he became unable to voice more than the first syllable of his daughter's name, or when he stopped trying to reach for the rest of it. The simple truth was that Deanna had a mother, but Dee had none. Deanna had been a happy, carefree child with a home and parents and dance lessons every week. Dee was a half-orphan, drifting from place to place endlessly with her father and baby brother in a car. She wasn't talking in those first few months, but she looked up when he said, "Dee," her eyes forever lost and afraid, bewildered by the loss of her mother and two-thirds of her name.

He knew it wasn't fair, was nearly monstrous, but that frightened, vulnerable defenselessness made him angry, so angry he thought he would hit something to break it and make it _stop_. He couldn't have it, he couldn't keep seeing it (and the danger it might be a reflection), so he devoted himself to forging a new expression in its place, one of wariness and determination that buried the fear.

Nor could he remember—when he realized his children needed more clothing to replace those consumed by fire—consciously choosing boy's clothing for his four-year-old girl. Flowers and bright colors didn't seem appropriate, not for the hideous world unveiled to him; so much reverted back to what he knew and understood in the war, that tragedy could strike at any time, from any direction, except the rules here were even less understood. Beyond the grief, he was terrified to his core, terrified of what he had seen and his powerlessness to stop it from happening again to the only things keeping him tied to sanity and life: his children.

He needed to keep them safe, and that pushed him onto the road, away from Lawrence, though no matter how far he went, the flames and Mary's silhouette behind his eyelids never faded. In his experience, safety meant camouflage, nothing to draw attention from others. People had always stopped to exclaim over what a beautiful girl he had, and he no longer wanted that attention. He found himself rummaging through Salvation Army, picking up pairs of small jeans and nondescript T-shirts. He bought hairbands and asked a young sales assistant to show him how to use them.

If the new clothes or changes seemed strange, Dee didn't complain. Of course, she didn't say a word through all of these months, but he knew she listened to him. Dee understood one thing above all else in this new life, and that was the last directive given inside their burning home. She stayed close to Sam, whether in the Impala or wherever they were stopped, as John struggled to take on the full-time responsibility of caring for a six-month-old on top of his endless quest to learn everything the psychic Missouri had merely hinted at. Missouri's compassion was the only one he had been able to bear, and leaving her house with new knowledge, he found he was able to take a full breath for the first time without searing pain in his chest.

Reshaping his daughter wasn't as hard as it should have been, though the ease of it wasn't something he reflected on for many years to come. Almost nothing about Dee reminded him of Deanna, of the little girl who had loved to dance and dress-up, to whom he had once devoted his life to pampering, cushioning from the smallest scrape. Now he took her by the shoulders, ensuring he had her full attention, and told her this was no bedtime story—something evil and real got her mother, and it was going to get her and Sammy too if she didn't stay smart and strong and careful. If she didn't do what Daddy said, every time and without hesitation, if she didn't pay attention to everything going on around them. If she didn't keep Sam quiet when he said to, if she forgot to check the locks and salt lines and everything else he told her to do, every time. Daddy would do his best to protect them, but he needed help—he needed to be able to count on her.

The world is very dangerous, he told her. Monsters are real, there's more of them than you can count or I know, and they want to hurt you.

When she started to cry, he didn't hug her. He kept his hands on her shoulders, waited until she quieted, and told her again, this is real.

She listened. She did what he said and did not forget. John remembered her age, as she passed her fifth birthday, and he made allowances and shielded her from the evil he brushed against. But he didn't waste time before beginning lessons, from instructing her to watch out for flickering lights, to describing what kind of situations and people might try to hurt her, and—ending that lesson—folding her small fingers around the handle of a penknife.

He felt no guilt. He was ensuring his children lived, because they certainly wouldn't have a chance otherwise. Dee wouldn't have a chance.

His life had two clear purposes: to find and kill what had murdered his wife, and to keep his children safe. But so often these missions were at odds. The more he learned about the monsters he hated from those men called hunters—stories of children and innocents dead in blood and bile, told over hard liquor in dark bars—the less he wanted to take Dee and Sammy anywhere close to the lesser evils described, let alone the ultimate one. So for a time he stayed back, focused on learning and enduring and getting them three meals a day, before he tried his own hand with salt and iron.

By the time Dee entered first grade, he had taught her all the parts of a gun and how they worked, even helped her fire a pistol with his hands around hers, though he didn't let her handle it alone yet. She was already different from the children around her; her teachers said she was quiet, didn't smile or play much, but she played just fine with her brother at home. John didn't see any problems.

As Sam began to crawl and teethe and make sounds that sounded more and more like words, Dee got a new name. _Dee-Dee_, he'd shout, at mealtime or bathtime or any moment of the day he pleased, and it won the small smile never seen anywhere else. While she cultivated her tough image at school, when her baby brother called for Dee-Dee and stretched out chubby arms, she always turned to hoist him up, even when she was hardly big enough to carry him.

She allowed him free use of the nickname for the first five years of his life, but after he finished kindergarten, Dee told Sammy he was too old for that nickname and neither of them were babies. It only took half the summer to break the habit, as Dee employed the effective strategy of refusing to acknowledge him unless he reduced her name to one syllable. Of course, later that year when he tripped on a curb and skinned both knees bloody, bursting into tears and sobbing for Dee-Dee, she never said a word about it as she helped him home and cleaned him up.

She remained Dee to everyone else, in their small constant world with its forever-changing backdrop of schools and motels and cheap, short-term rentals. After one second-grade incident when Dee ripped up her desk nameplate because it read "Deanna," John filled in "Dee" as her whole name on all school paperwork.

Even in the first year after Mary's death, he began teaching his daughter basic self-defense and when to use it, but he was not surprised—nor wholly displeased—when she tested it out in the schoolyard. Despite multiple calls from successive schools, he didn't find it a problem until principals began talking about "disturbing aggression indicating bigger issues for concern" and asked more pointedly about the stability of their home life and past. Sometimes it was enough to curtly say her mother had died, but in some cases they continued talking of child therapists and some types of tests and investigation, and that was enough for John to find another school in a different state. He warned Dee not to jump into fights, restraining herself only to dire emergencies or when someone was bullying Sam.

Troubles at school never gave him real concern. Dee was doing well every way that counted: taking seriously the survival training, gun and knife practice, and her responsibility to be constantly watchful of her surroundings and to trust no one except family. She was desperate to please him, to exceed expectations, and clearly aware she had to compensate. John saw no merit in sugarcoating it. "Boys will always be stronger than you," he told her. "They'll think you're an easy target, that they can beat you. And unless you work your hardest all the time, without ever letting up or getting cocky, they'll be able to. Now tighten your fists and do it again."

As he steadily raised the standards for PT, Dee never complained or faltered. When he told her to do twenty push-ups, she did forty. An order for ten laps was carried out as fifteen. John was inordinately pleased with her, though most days he only said, "Good," touching the back of her sweat-soaked hair, as they turned back home.

He gradually made contacts and acquaintances in the hunting world, and he found he could depend on some more than others. Jim Murphy showed a kind interest in his children from the beginning and offered his home as a place they could all retreat to if they needed down-time—an offer John was grateful to take advantage of more than once. He wasn't so grateful, though, when Jim began butting his nose into John's parenting. He didn't need to hear "your daughter" with pointed emphasis six times a day, like he'd forgotten or as though it made a difference. When he'd had enough, he pulled the pastor into a back room, away from the kids, before tearing into him.

"Do you think I'd be a better father if I gave her _dolls_ to play with, if I told her there's no such thing as ghosts, there's nothing to worry about at night? Do you think I'd be a better father if I never let her touch a gun? Do you think she'd be _safer_ for it?" He slammed his fist on the table. "I watched my wife burn. I have no intention of seeing my children cut down because they weren't prepared."

Murphy watched him, a guarded look in his eyes, and kept his opinions to himself after that.

Despite what some acquaintances like Singer and Murphy thought, he never told Dee she shouldn't be a girl or that he wished she wasn't one. John simply made sure she understood the facts and liabilities so she could be prepared. Life would never again be kind to any Winchester, and it especially wouldn't for Dee.

Dee, meanwhile, was a smart girl. She knew what her father wanted.

The depth of his lessons manifested as Dee entered junior high. The first occurred on his return from a three-day hunt—nothing remarkable about it or the events before he left—when he walked in to find that in his absence his children had gotten haircuts: Sam's hair was neatly trimmed, and his eleven-year-old daughter had shaved her head.

In a moment of stillness and clarity, John saw her stark features under the bad yellow motel lighting. He took in what had been hidden by a tightly-pulled ponytail: the tender, fragile shape of her skull, how _young_ her face was, emphasized all the more by the apprehension written there as she waited for his reaction. Something teetered inside him, as the parent he had first been threatened to re-emerge with a grief-stricken, outraged howl.

But John had just finished putting down a water sprite that had targeted children, luring and dragging them to dark depths, and he had been too late for three of the victims. Too late to do anything but view their bodies in the morgue, their cold pale skin highlighted with bruises around their ankles, wrists, and necks. The last was a girl, no more than eight, with limp blonde curls and near-translucent eyelids. She was beautiful and dead.

God help him, that would not be Dee.

Before they left town, he bought a cheap electric razor and placed it in the bathroom drawer, next to her tampons.

A year passed before another event grabbed his attention, made him pause to consider how seriously Dee took her role as a hunter's daughter. They stopped in Grenada, Mississippi, for Dee to start seventh grade. He was preoccupied with a hunt for some rumored witches in the area, though he returned home every night and the kids reported school was going all right. So when he received a call one morning from Dee's principal, grimly informing him there was an emergency that required him to come in at once, he was taken off-guard.

Mrs. Douglas was a crisply-dressed, middle-aged black woman with a military bearing John recognized, and he wondered briefly where she had served or how she moved into education afterward.

"Mr. Winchester, I was hoping you could clean up a point of confusion for us. Your child is registered in our files as D.W.—is that the name on the birth certificate?"

"No," he said curtly. "It's Deanna. She goes by Dee, I don't know where you heard D.W."

Mrs. Douglas narrowed her eyes. "So you don't deny your child is a girl."

John tensed. "Why would I?" If this was another backward Southern school which took issue with the length of Dee's hair or the clothes she wore...

"So you were unaware your _daughter_ lied to her teachers, classmates, and the entire staff about her gender, posing as a boy since the day she walked into this school?"

It took John a moment to process what he had heard. "She did what?"

Mrs. Douglas leaned back, pursing her lips as she clasped her hands on the desk, the gesture clearly conveying what she thought of John's parenting. She enunciated slowly and sternly, as though dictating punishment to a misbehaving child. "Your daughter has been using the boys' restrooms. She went into the boys' locker rooms to change for P.E. When asked to separate for boy and girl activities, she went with the boys every time. I made a call to Lowell Elementary, where Mrs. Hudson reports your son Sam has been an accomplice, consistently calling Deanna his 'brother' and referring to her with male pronouns. I had thought you were in on it as well, since you must have purchased her clothing and cut her hair."

She had no right to judge him or his family, but John fought down his anger in order to speak. "How was she caught?"

"Her act was nearly flawless—she had everyone fooled. Her teachers never suspected a thing, but the other boys got suspicious. At the end of the P.E. hour today, in their locker room, they decided to test the truth the most direct way boys their age could think, by pulling her shorts down." She leaned in again, frowning. "Were you _aware_ your daughter wears boxers for underwear?"

John gritted his teeth. "What happened to the boys?"

"Oh, your daughter attacked them. Pretty viciously, too. It's lucky Coach Martinez heard the brawl before someone was seriously hurt. We removed her to the guidance counselor's office to wait for you, as all her classmates are quite worked up over the revelation." She sighed, reshuffling a stack of papers on her desk. "Mr. Winchester, it is difficult to overstate the faculty's and my concern over Deanna's behavior. The anger and aggression she's displayed, as well as her thoroughness in taking on the role of a boy, are most troubling. Miss Christy—our counselor—asked Deanna about her mother, and she said she died." Mrs. Douglas paused to let John confirm or deny the statement, and he gave a short, stiff nod. "I'm sorry to hear that. It must be difficult for everyone." To her credit, she sounded sincere and asked no more questions. "It's not unusual for children to act out in various ways when struggling to cope with the death of a parent. They need all the help and support they can get." She extended the packet of papers toward him. "This is a collection of information on all the local children's psychiatric offices."

John stood up. "That won't be necessary."

Mrs. Douglas rose as well, still holding out the packet. "I wish you'd at least read through and consider this. There are many benefits for troubled children—"

"I'd like to see my daughter now." John spoke quietly, but it was unmistakably clear the subject was closed.

She stared at him, lips pressed with barely concealed anger, contempt, and disappointment, but lowered the papers. "Mr. Winchester, there is one more thing we must discuss." When he did not take his seat but looked at her expectantly, she continued. "Given her classmates' reaction to the discovery, as well as how unsettled her teachers are, it has been unanimously decided that Jefferson is not the best school environment for your daughter any longer."

John stared. "You're expelling her. For dressing as a boy."

"For engaging in a willful, pre-meditated deception violating basic trust between her and the staff. But we would not call it an expulsion. It is a strong recommendation, and in Deanna's best interest to find another school. It is also our professional recommendation that she find a good therapy program. You don't want this behavior to escalate to more dangerous paths."

For several seconds, John did not trust himself to speak. At last he asked, voice so low it was almost a whisper, "Where is the counselor's office?'

She held his gaze for a beat, then said, "Follow me," and led him out, down the hall of offices. She knocked on a door set with colorful glass before opening it.

Dee sat in a chair, holding an ice pack to the back of her head. The moment he saw her, John ordered, "Let's go, Dee," turning on his heel without looking at the woman behind the desk.

Dee sprang up, dropping the ice pack, and hurried after him. She was nearly jogging to keep up with his pace out of the school, but he didn't pause until they were in the Impala.

She stayed silent as he drove aimlessly for a few miles, then pulled over into the back of a mall parking lot. The moment he cut the engine, she blurted, "I'm sorry."

For the first time since picking her up, John looked at her. He could see how they had thought she was a scrawny boy, now, with the half-inch of peach fuzz on her head, her chin jutting in angry defiance, though he doubted they had ever seen her eyes scared, too, as she held her breath. "For doing it or for getting caught?" he asked evenly.

Dee bit her lip, looking so distressed that he suddenly realized she didn't know which possibility he was upset about. "Both?"

John shook his head, gripping the steering wheel in a rush of anger, though he couldn't have said who it was directed toward. He couldn't keep the bite out of his voice when he demanded, "What made you think you could get away with that, Dee?"

She flinched, digging her fingers into the leather seat, but after a moment burst out, "Every waitress since Oregon has called me a boy. The motel managers ask about your sons, and you don't say anything. I wanted to see how far it would work. And no one suspected anything, Dad, not for the longest time, and they wouldn't have if it weren't for the stupid locker room and those nosy assholes -"

"_Dee_." She fell silent at once, and he went on sternly. "You told your brother to lie for you."

Her eyes dropped, ashamed. "I told him it was an experiment. He loves experiments. And it was, too."

"It was stupid, Dee," he said sharply. "You were bound to get caught."

"Then why do you let me pretend everywhere else?"

John clenched his jaw, waiting a long moment as he chose his words. "When I leave you and Sammy alone for a weekend, it's better that people, especially at motels, think you're a boy taking care of your younger brother. It's safer, Dee, I've told you that. But those people aren't around you very much or for very long. You can't pull it off at school. It's only going to get harder as you get older," he added pointedly. Dee was still almost completely flat-chested, and the training bras she had just begun wearing helped disguise her gender more than anything else they did.

She tightened her fists in her lap and said in a low voice, "I can try."

"Dee -"

"I can!" she cried, looking him in the face. "I can make people think I'm a boy, there are ways to do it no matter how big tits I grow. I can hide it."

John said nothing. Her resolve demonstrated the same ferocity she had while target shooting or throwing herself through his drills, a refusal to fail that tightened his chest with pride. That woman behind the desk who knew nothing of what was out there, the evil they faced, could never understand how Dee's determination not to let anything slow her down was healthy.

He wouldn't change it, not for the world.

"Not at school," he told her. "No more lying on your registration forms. It attracts too much attention."

After a moment, she nodded, a peculiar look of relief settling on her face. "Yes sir. I'm sorry I got caught."

He turned the key in the ignition. "Let's go get your brother."

They turned north to Montana, an area suffering from black dogs, to finish Dee's seventh grade and Sam's third. She didn't try to pass as a boy in school, but when John pinpointed the lair approximately two day's hiking into the woods, he paused after his usual litany of reminders. Looking her in the eye, he said, "Do whatever seems necessary to keep you and Sam safest. Be discreet."

She nodded, mouth set and eyes bright, fierce.

The pretense worked better than he ever expected, even into real adolescence, and she took on sports bras, day and night, with her usual boxers. She was delighted to find a bulky army jacket in a resale store and wore it from then on like a second skin, except in the hottest months. Her hair she allowed to grow out a little more, enough to style like a normal boy's—which was to say, quite a bit shorter than Sam's. It was dark and spiky, tapered close at the neck; no-nonsense and oddly fetching, in a masculine way.

When she started high school, John gave her for Christmas a set of medium weights, and for her fifteenth birthday, her first fake IDs—duplicates, one declaring her male, the other female (and both that she was eighteen years of age). She beamed so bright, wouldn't put them down or away for nearly the whole day—maybe happier than when she had received her first pistol two years before, which hadn't seemed possible. Something unpleasant niggled John underneath his satisfaction at her elation, but he chased it away with another shot of Christmas bourbon.

He had gotten enough glimpses of other hunters' psyches to be wary of introducing his children to them (not all were as well-adjusted as Singer and Murphy), but as the kids grew older and more capable, he occasionally brought them forward for introductions: "These are my kids, Dee and Sam." Dee always moved forward first, a quick smile and tight handshake, eyes never wavering from theirs. It didn't take long before John didn't miss a beat when the acquaintances commented later, "Those are some fine boys you have," or asked after his sons. Sometimes they called her Dean. He never considered correcting them; Dee was right, there were only benefits to the false impression. It eliminated a bunch of problems he'd have otherwise with a teenage daughter on display.

Sam, however, didn't take so well to these misconceptions. The first time someone asked, "What are you boys up to this summer?", he opened his mouth indignantly, but cut himself off when Dee kicked his shin with her combat boot. Despite how he'd never questioned their pretense when John was gone (now a routine so taken for granted, they didn't even mention it aloud beforehand), for some reason he took issue with people assuming Dee was a boy _before_ she told them so.

Sam had grown up cheerfully oblivious to many of their daily idiosyncrasies, including his sister's defiance of gender norms. But his increasing awareness and resentment of their hunting lifestyle included Dee's peculiarities. John wasn't surprised—Sam had no understanding of their sacrifices or Dee's absolute devotion to hunting. Oh, Sam loved his sister, no doubt about that, and he was never embarrassed by any stage of her experimentation, nor did he ever entirely lose his little-brother worship and faith that she could do anything. What Sam got angry about, as he got older, were the incidents at school and other casual exchanges at home that John found completely ordinary, but made Sam stop and scowl—without exception, at John. Dee never failed to mock him relentlessly for these "emo princess fits," verbally abusing him until he was forced to turn his attention to her and snap back to make her stop—by which point the original cause of his mood was forgotten, as she no doubt intended.

John wasn't oblivious; he remembered the fights when she was in elementary, before she cut her hair. He had been informed of the name-calling, which always seemed to revolve around her supposed sexuality no matter what school they went to. But Dee never brought it up with him, didn't seem upset or bothered—it certainly didn't shake her enthusiasm for training—so he never thought it was a problem. And if Dee didn't care, why should Sam get all bent out of shape about it?

As far as John knew, Sam never discussed it with Dee. He was pretty sure she would stomp out that conversation before it ever began. But as Sam gained confidence talking back to John, there were small, unexpected explosions concerning Dee—when she wasn't there. At first, he made random, inexplicable references, thrown into lines that seemed complete non-sequiturs: "like what you've done to Dee" or "of course _Dee_ doesn't mind."

Once, when John demanded to know exactly what about Dee Sam had a problem with, Sam stopped, inhaled deeply, then said in a much lower tone, "I don't like how kids at school treat her—and I don't like how she treats herself."

This made no sense, of course. Dee kept herself in excellent shape, ate enthusiastically without ever counting calories, and never displayed a lack of confidence or self-deprecation. In fact, she was confident to the point of cockiness, moving with a distinctive swagger; her body language radiated self-assurance and comfort with her body, loads more than most girls her age had. John liked seeing that—it made him proud.

But he wasn't blind. He knew Dee had a rough time all the way through school because of her hair and clothes, despite how she never talked about it. There wasn't much he could do except give her support and approval when she succeeded where it counted. Still, as she moved into independent adulthood, he wasn't entirely surprised she had unorthodox relationships atypical for either a girl or a boy.

As open-minded as he felt he was about Dee's behavior, the subject of sex never failed to throw him back to his earliest instincts as a protective father. Absurd, considering the dangerous situations he regularly drew her into and the injuries she sustained. All he could do was tamp down as hard as he could on those urges to protest, and instead turn a blind eye to whomever she left the bar with. Truth be told, he felt easier when it was a girl. Sex, though, was one of those things they didn't discuss. He knew Dee was safe, and that was the extent of his involvement.

John was proud of his daughter, no question about that, even if he had for years now casually referred to his children as his "sons." It kept her safer, stronger, and he was sure she understood that, even if it pissed Sam off.

And Sam had his issues outside of his attitude about his sister's choices. John had no patience for his adolescent surliness, for the constant questioning, when Dee had never given him this kind of trouble. Though he assumed at the start that this was something Sam would grow out of, John grew less confident of that over the years, and by the time Sam told him of the scholarship—implicit in it, all the work and determination to leave them and hunting behind—John had had enough. Soldiers, those fighting in a war (and Sam was part of that, far more than he knew, whether he liked it or not), couldn't share the privileges of civilian life, and if Sam didn't value what they did and accept the cost—but then, he had never known Mary. Maybe that was why.

Whatever the reason, John had had enough. If Sam wanted a normal life, he could have one, with nothing holding him back. Sam had to make his choice.

And he did.

After Sam walked out, life became simpler. Not easier, but simpler, more straightforward. There was nothing slowing him down now, no distractions. Dee fell in line as she always did, and if she was quieter, if some part of her seemed to have deserted the same night as Sam—well, that was understandable. They had been close. Sam had chosen to leave her too, chosen his life over theirs, and John couldn't ease that for her.

Dee remained a ruthlessly efficient hunter, her skills increasing every year, until John felt confident letting her go alone. He had amassed enough intel now to begin tracking his true enemy, to dedicate himself to the ultimate hunt—the one that had begun two decades ago. He didn't intend to bring his daughter into it. Dee was smart and sharp, she had learned well every lesson he ever taught her, and he trusted her to be able to handle herself just about anywhere—but he would not bring her near the thing that had destroyed her mother.

When he saw her again—with _Sam_, his boy—John felt pride rise with a strength he hadn't felt in years. Dee had needed to be beside her brother, to have him at her back, but far more than that, Sam needed her. He might not even know how much yet, but John knew. And despite what he had learned, that night in Chicago as he looked at his bloody and battered children _grown_, standing straight and tall and unwavering, he felt a fierce love for _both_ of them that took him aback. He might have believed, then, that his two could overcome anything—if he could have afforded hope like that.

Then he had that yellow-eyed son of a bitch _in_ him for hours, talking to and touching his children. Long before they caught on, the demon mocked John inside his head, laughing at what a sad freak he'd turned his daughter into. John steeled himself, refused to cede anything, until Dee realized and raised the Colt, and Sam stepped to her side. Then the demon used his own mouth to tear her apart, and John saw her face whiten as every barb hit.

"Well, if it isn't Daddy's princess." He laughed, a low chuckle as her face contorted, struggling not to give anything away. "Oh, did you think I wouldn't notice? You've worked so hard not to be a girl, to turn yourself into the boy your father always wanted, but no matter how hard you pretend, you're still a girl in boy's clothes. Your brother's always been ashamed of you, and your dad, well—he tried to hide it, but he's disappointed in what you are too. He's inside here too, you know. We've been chatting about _poor little Deanna_. Not a real girl or a boy, just a useless, pathetic in-between. Why do you think they both left you behind? They'd rather be on their own than with you.

"Well, guess what." The yellow-eyed bastard moved John's head in, baring his teeth at Dee. "I'm not fooled. I know what you are. And you're still going to die."

John remembered those words, sitting beside Dee's hospital bed, distantly hearing the beeps of the monitors that told him his girl had not yet gone.

He was seeing his daughter as he never had before, now as she lay still, unresponsive in her white gown, smaller than he had expected in the hospital bed. No smirk or swagger, nothing to deflect his curt inquiries or searching eye when he was taking stock of what shape she was in. She'd become very good at that, even in between hunts, after Sam left. Now the open truth was too stark, too brutally exposed for his eyes: A woman, no longer a hint of the girl she had once been. Bruised, damaged, and about to be gone.

Stripped of her leather coat—the one that had been his, until her twenty-first birthday—and sports bras, of her jeans and boots and knives, John _saw_ her as he had not in years. Yes, Dee dressed and was what she wanted to be...but he'd been lying to himself, too, for so many years. She was Dee, his firstborn, a hunter—one of the best damn hunters he knew. She hustled and drank and was an expert shot; she could go toe-to-toe, rile up the roughest crowd, and peel away in the Impala with never a scratch, she watched out for her brother with every breath she took...all this he had known and cherished, far prouder of her accomplishments than anything he had managed on his own.

He had forgotten there was anything more to her.

Sam had shouted at him, just a few hours ago. That old rage and bitterness breaking through again—John recognized it, though he hadn't remembered its strength. Maybe it hadn't been that strong, years ago. Sam wasn't a boy anymore.

_"Dee is _dying_, and you have a plan! You care more about finding this demon than you do about her—but that's always been the way it is, you've been happy to use every bit of her and let her sacrifice herself for the cause. You never cared what it did to her, what she had left, if she was ever anything more than your good little soldier."_

John had wanted so much for both of them, always. That's what this was all supposed to be about: killing the thing that had killed their mother, so his children could grow up in peace, their lives free of this.

They were already grown, though. And John knew better now of what they could expect, even after he was gone.

Not all of it was his fault. The great part of blame lay with the yellow-eyed sonofabitch, but...there were some things John had to acknowledge here, looking at his daughter. Truths he had to account for.

John did what he had to do, and without regret. Even when the demon insisted he _sweeten the pot_, John could not call the choice a struggle. He knew now, more than ever before, what he owed Dee, and his life and soul could not begin to repay.

He returned to her, to see her green eyes open again and Sam smiling at her (a smile that vanished the instant he saw John, but that was the way of it too. Enough, now, that Sam had his sister back). And once he'd sent Sam out, Dee's eyes were on him. Waiting, anxious, sharp. Dee knew him, had measured his moods thousands of times by the furrow of his brow and cast of his eyes. She knew now, too, that something was not right.

He sat on her bed, barely stopping himself from taking her hand. It would be hard enough for her to accept what he had to say, she didn't need to be any more disturbed.

"You know...when you were a kid," _a girl_, he almost said, but he could recall now—as vivid as Mary's face, their kiss at the altar, the first time he held Sam in his arms—the last time he'd casually called her that, and how she had flinched. "When you were a kid, I'd come home from a hunt, and after the things I'd seen...I'd be wrecked. And you—you'd put your hand on my shoulder, and say, 'It's okay, Dad.'" John swallowed, for a moment unable to speak, before he could manage the rest. "I'm sorry, Deanna."

Shock rolled over her face, the machines still attached picking up their beeping to match her pulse and heart rate.

John went on. "I put too much on your shoulders, I—I made you grow up too fast. You took care of Sammy, you took care of me. You did that. And you didn't complain, not once. I just want you to know...that I am so proud of you." The words were not half sufficient, but John had made her what she was, and Dee had embraced that, took pride in it. He would not leave her thinking he regretted any part of it now. The yellow-eyed demon's words had not been true; John had never been ashamed or disappointed in Dee a day in his life.

"Dad..." Dee's chest rose and fell fast, but her whisper barely trembled. "Is it really you talking?"

"Yeah...yeah, it's really me." He managed a weak smile, pushing aside this other tremendous failure, of what behavior caused his children to question whether he was in his right mind.

"Why are you saying this stuff?"

_Dee_. His strong, strong girl, who had never deserved the life he had given her, nor this last gift, but some things were out of their hands. Some things were just the lot of a Winchester, and at least he knew she was ready for it, could take whatever was coming. That was some comfort, now.

He stood up, grasped her shoulder, and looked into her eyes. "I want you to watch out for Sammy, okay?"

"Yeah, Dad, you know I will. You're scaring me." Her eyes shone bright, the daughter he had taught to be fearless.

John smiled at her. "Don't be scared, Dee."

He took that with him, as he walked down the hall and laid the gun down. Dee might be scared, she would grieve, but she would rise to the fight. Sam would have her back, and if there came a day when she would have to fulfill his final warning, she would find the strength for that as well. If the yellow-eyed demon could be taken down, she would do it. He had taught her that, at least: no obstacles could stand in her way, no one could tell her her limits. John had to believe that—that for every snare he had given her, he had also provided the means to one day trample them, tear them all down. He had to.


End file.
